Category: Official Release

Today we have excellent news to share with all of you: we are happy to present the Moleskine edition of Trourist (a special collaboration between two special brands). As many of you have observed on more than one occasion, at Trourist we’re big fans of Moleskine. Not just because they make cool and smart notepads, but because they embody a philosophy lived by people who go through life with an insatiable curiosity and a desire to discover and experiment new things. For two centuries, artists and intellectuals such as Hemingway and Matisse have travelled with these handy notepads as trustworthy companions. Today, Moleskine is a source of inspiration for travellers like us.

And now for something that you all are interested in … How can you get one of the notepads featured below which we are certain you will enjoy? At the moment, there are two ways you can win one of these miniature objects of inspiration:

- Sharing with Trourist your most special experiences from Summer 2010. The five best experiences shared with us before 27 October will be awarded a Moleskine edition of Trourist.

- Pay attention to the Trourist page in Facebook. Over the next few weeks, we will formulate questions related with travelling and will raffle several notepads among participants. So, if you’re not already a fan of Trourist on Facebook, do so soon in order to participate.

After tallying point totals from jury members, we have the three winners from our latest Trourist experience contest: LO-Month.

Beginning with the category for Best Overall Experience, and winner of a Diana+ Deluxe Pack, our lucky contestant is Cande Abril, who shared with us a most unusual experience to be lived in the Navigli neighborhood of Milan. Cande recommends a rendezvous through an area formerly teemng with canals filled with water but which nowadays is a cluster of assorted establishments. Let her tell you about it.

In the category of Best London Experience, Kate Turner walked away with her hands full. She won a Diani Mini + Flash. Her delectable experience, never better said, consists of a visit to the market in Borough, where “fine eats” from all around the world can be found, with special mention of a section devoted to nothing but sweets. Again, we think it’s better if she speaks to you about it first-hand.

Lastly, in the Best Barcelona Experience category, Laura Hernandez will also be able to enjoy a Diana Mini + Flash of her very own. Laura touts the possibility of getting to know local artists short on fame but long on talent at a marvelous gallery with a marvelous name called Miscelania. She, too, should be the one to fill you in.

Congrats to all our winners and all those who participated, the bar level for experiences was set extremely high. Real travel gems were shared, which I’m sure will have you living to the max your travels wherever you go this summer.

Once more, we encourage you to share with others those places that are oh-so-special in your city or that you’ve come across during one of your recent jaunts. And not to worry, in our next contest we will include all those experiences shared since the conclusion of LO-Month.

Finally, we cannot sign off without thanking again Lomography Spain for sponsoring this contest.

The Trourist community has been quite active the past few days. During the month of May, real pearls of advice have been submitted by travelers, like yourself, who seek genuine and special experiences from the destinations they visit.

In the category of Best Experience, we’ve narrowed it down to 10 finalists, any one of who has a chance of winning the Diana+ Deluxe Pack. Mikel García Nograro, for instance, proposed a unique way to spend a Sunday in Cape Town. Maria Agirre, in turn, invited us down to a bar/gallery right smack in the middle of San Francisco. Gerrit Lamch took us to a very special place in Montreal to have breakfast. Borja Serrano waxed lyrical about embarking on an adventure along an idyllic passage in New Zealand. Nagore Guarretxena discovered a place to photograph geishas in Tokyo. Alba Rosales whisked us away to a mysterious bar in Cracovia. Pablo Adrian Medina suggested a water reservoir in Tulum. Ryan showed us a few places to hit when spending quality time in Galway. Cande Abril opened our eyes to a most interesting rendezvous in Milan. And Kate Turner recommended a lovely spot to have a cocktail with your significant other in Oxford.

In the category of Best Experience in London and Barcelona, and vying for a shot at a Diana Mini +Flash, we’ve selected 3 finalists from each city. In London, Oscar Cervantes told us where to grab dinner on Marylebone High Street, Adam Smith invited us to a cafe in Soho and Kate Turner (yes, Kate again!) called our attention to a great market where you can go whennever you’re ready for a shopping spree. In Barcelona, Isabel Martí suggested a tea house in the Gothic section, Laura Hernandez introduced us to an area overflowing with provocative creations by talented artists, and Jon Santa mailed in a night out eating Japanese cuisine.

Who’s going to win in each category? The various juries will have their verdicts in a few days. For the moment, though, everyone’s a winner because we all have more genuine and special experiences to choose from. Thanks to all those who particpated in this fun event!

And for those of you wondering: we are now 2500 trourists!

The jury is formed by:

Francesc Balagué: http://www.francescbalague.cat/

Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll: http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/

Lara Dunston and Terence Carter: http://grantourismotravels.com/

Lindsay Hogg: http://thetravellerworldguide.com/

Mike Baris: http://www.mikebarish.com/

Pasquale Caprile: www.lomography.es

A trourist doesn’t travel to disconnect from the world but just the opposite: to connect with it. Our main goal at Trourist has always been — and will continue to be —  helping travellers to live special and genuine experiences in every city they visit. In most cases, that means visiting local shops or availing oneself of a native resident’s helpful pointers. This is what we call Local Travel, which we consider the most fun, real and rewarding way to get to know those places we visit.

Besides, this way of travelling so far removed from that offered by behemoth tour-operators, is much more true and reliable. On the one hand, it ensures a more equitable distribution of tourism-derived monies to the people residing at the places visited. On the other hand, this system permits local shops to transmit culture and local customs their way without interference from third parties.

Without a doubt, we love Local Travel because of what it offers us and the communities whose destinations we visit. We feel obligated to come out and say that we are proud of our collaborative efforts with the Local Travel Movement, a grassroots initiative which promotes this way of travelling. If you’d like to learn more about this movement, or wish to find out about similar activities that will allow you to connect directly with people and their local businesses, just visit their web site.

Last week we talked to you about Lomography as a way of preserving a memory of your trips — or even — your day-to-day living.

Today, thanks to the cooperation of Lomography.es, it’s our pleasure to introduce a New Experiences Contest. To win one of the the dream prizes, all you have to do is share with us those special places that make any city special.

In 1977 at the behest of the New York City Tourist Bureau, Milton Glaser came up with a logo design that expressed with striking simplicity the admiration which the city inspired in him and all those who have allowed themselves to be infused by its essence.

The design, done pro bono incidentally (his altruistic donation to the city) has transcended to such a point that even today, thousands of persons everywhere –New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike — wear it daily, making it one of the most significant designs of the 20th century.

Since then, numerous messages have been transmitted via this unique creation produced by an American typewriter and a red heart. We, too, wished for Glaser’s legacy to be present in the design of our initial T-shirt. However, we elected to include our own personal touch.

With that in mind, we substituted Glaser’s heart with the silhouette of the mythical and romantic Route 66 sign. When we speak of route 66, we could care less that for decades it has served as the nexus between the eastern and western coasts of the United States. Instead, what we do like is that it is the symbolic representation of the non-conformist generation portrayed in Jack Kerouac‘s On The Road. For this reason and as a homage to that spirit of adventure and the numerous road trips it has engendered, we felt it should receive an honorary place on our inaugural T-shirt.

If you want to be one of the lucky few to own a T-shirt from our initial run of 100, we’ll make sure you receive yours anywhere on the planet for just 15 euros. Write us at: hello@trourist.com and include your name, postal code and the subject heading: ROUTE 66 TEE.

Don’t forget: Keep traveling real!

Trourist has taken another step to improve its service for travellers. It gives us great pleasure to inform you all that we’ve reached an agreement with SafeCreative, a worldwide leader in copyright registration. Thanks to this accord, Trourist users in the upcoming months ahead will be able to benefit from copyright protection for all those images which they share with us.

SafeCreative is first worldwide in copyright registration; additionally, it is global, free, open and costs you nothing. It was created in a web environment and permits any creator or rights-owner to register his or her work in a digital archive. Registrants also receive tangible proof of their registration, usable in trial or a court of law, in the form of an electronically-signed registration certificate.

This agreement wishes to integrate the services that Trourist offers with the new challenges posed by Internet. Unquestionably, recognition of copyright is key in an environment where trust between persons (travellers) is fundamental as is the exchange or sharing of content (genuine travelling experiences).

Today is a very special day for all of us who’ve been working for over a year on trourist. The day for our official launch has arrived. It is time to unveil ourselves to the world!!!

For the last three months we’ve been operating on private BETA, and we wish to thank all those travelers who contributed truly helpful ideas and suggestions so that we could take trourist to the next level.

Without further ado, here are some of the main improvements you’ll now find:

- Explore the world through trourist. We’ve added a navigable map in which zeppelins will ‘fly’ you to assorted destinations on the globe where a trourist experience has taken place. On the same page, we’ve highlighted notable trends to illustrate what’s happening out there (cities with the largest number of trourists, most frequented cities, and so on).

- Share city experiences. It’s no longer necessary to create a trip to upload an experience. This makes it much easier for you to share with your friends those experiences that make a city so special.

- Facebook connect and g-mail finder. With these two new applications, sharing trourist with your friends will be a snap and the experience of doing so a lot more fun. Besides, those experiences you create in trourist will be included in your facebook newsfeed so that even more friends can learn that a new way to travel is possible.

Okay, we’ve informed you. The best thing now is for you to check out these new improvements for yourself.
Lastly, let us encourage you to share with your friends and other trourists the most genuine and rewarding experiences you’ve lived this summer.

We sincerely hope you enjoy trourist and find it useful.

The last few weeks have been hectic at trourist, from a product standpoint, as well as the communication of same. We’re not saying this as an excuse to explain our lack of activity in this space. Quite the contrary.

From a product perspective, as many of you know, we’ve been operating in private beta mode for a month-and-a-half. We are painfully aware of the need to bring things up to speed in a number of areas. We’re working on it. We also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have dedicated the time and effort to get in contact with us and share a slew of ideas and suggestions.

Our intention is to open trourist officially after this summer of 2009, when those functions that you’ve sorely missed are up and operating and when it will be easier to consult our site for experiences in high-interest destinations. The goal is not an easy one, but we firmly believe in your passion and desire to share with us those special moments that distinguish one city from another. This is why we recommend that, if you’re planning to hit the road this summer, take along a Moleskine to jot down trourist experiences.

From a communications view, we’re flying. We’ve just come back from ExperienceLess, our promotional campaign to increase awareness of the trourist philosophy. People in the most diverse cities have responded in an overwhelmingly positive manner, much better than expected, in fact. We’ve spread the word in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Istambul, Dubrovnik and Barcelona. The experience has been one that will remain indelible for all of us. If you look at our ExpereinceLess blog, you’ll be able to read about our current activities and enjoy the videos that we’ve been hanging along the way. Be sure to check it out!

Lastly, let me take a timeout to make a wish for you all: This summer enjoy your trips to the max. It’s the only way to have fun and learn at the same time. And remember – keep traveling real.